The thirties, when the huge middle class of America were having their fingers pressed forcibly down on the fiery Braille alphabet of a dissolving economy.
Tennessee Williams.
More than half a century has passed since the beginning of the Great Depression. And jet, the shadow of the 1930s still hovers over American society. .
During the year after the stock market crashed, 4 million workers lost their jobs. By 1931, 100.000 Americans were being laid off each week. By 1932, nearly 13 million people were unemployed, a full quarter of the work force, thus depriving another 30 million people who depended on their support for the necessities of life. Black worker, the last hired and the first fired, had an unemployment rate of 35 percent. .
Employees who held on to their jobs took cuts in pay. Between 1929 and 1933, the average earnings of workers in manufacturing fell from $25 per week to less than $17. The income of farmers declined until , by the winter of 1933, many corn and wheat growers were burning their crops to heat their houses because they could only sell their crops at a crushing loss. Wheat farmers estimated that they had to harvest more than ten bushels of grain to earn the price of a pair of shoes. Hungry people rioted in St. Paul and in other cities, storming food markets an clearing the shelves. In Wisconsin, diary farmers stopped milk trucks and dumped the milk into ditches to dramatize the low pay they received for their products. .
During the 1932, the worst year of the Great Depression, 32.000 businesses failed. Untold number of people lost their homes because they could not keep up mortgage payments. In the South and Midwest, one of every farm families was forced off the land. .
In the prosperous year 1928, about 14.000 hoboes hopped freights on the Missouri Pacific Railroad. By 1931, 186.000 homeless people were estimated to have ridden the same rails. The nation's railroads estimated that about 1.
